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You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Tricky Dickless

Tricky Dickless

by John Cole|  January 25, 20188:29 pm| 239 Comments

This post is in: Dolt 45

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Looks like Orange Julius Caesar tried to go the full Nixon:

President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.

This fucking guy. And this should be fucking amazing:

President Trump said Wednesday he is “looking forward” to testifying under oath to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as part of the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election while also mounting a preemptive defense of potential obstruction accusations.

“I would love to do it, and I would like to do it as soon as possible,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I would do it under oath, absolutely.”

The president suggested he could be investigated for obstruction of justice as part of the Russia investigation because he was “fighting back” and reiterated there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Moscow.

“Oh, well, ‘Did he fight back?’ ” Trump said, “You fight back, ‘Oh, it’s obstruction.’ ”

Considering his casual relationship with the truth, which actually is more rape than relationship because he just grabs it by the pussy and has his way with it, he’ll definitely perjure himself if he does. So do it, Donald! Do it!

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Reader Interactions

239Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh36

    January 25, 2018 at 8:31 pm

    Wow…look at Maggie H trying to get on the right side of history? Or has she given up on “access journalism”?

  2. 2.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 8:31 pm

    One of my fave lawyers on Twitter –

    Trump ordered Mueller fired in June, but then backed off

    NYT includes 2 facts that are incriminating (read: obstruction):

    1. White House Counsel threatened to quit — suggests invalid reasons for firing

    2. Trump came up with three conflicts of interest that look specious: pic.twitter.com/cD2KzolR3z

    — Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) January 26, 2018

  3. 3.

    David Anderson

    January 25, 2018 at 8:32 pm

    So what do we do when shit goes down

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    January 25, 2018 at 8:33 pm

    Tricky Dickless

    Every other nickname for Trump is now obsolete.

  5. 5.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 8:33 pm

    @David Anderson: Shit isn’t gonna go down until Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell are ready for it. Or after we flip the congress in November.

  6. 6.

    father pusbucket

    January 25, 2018 at 8:34 pm

    Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.

  7. 7.

    Davis X. Machina

    January 25, 2018 at 8:36 pm

    @father pusbucket: Step on it enough, and that will happen..

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    January 25, 2018 at 8:36 pm

    As I said in the last thread – There it is.

  9. 9.

    Feebog

    January 25, 2018 at 8:37 pm

    I hope he refuses the interview and Mueller hauls his fat ass in front of the Grand Jury. No lawyer, he will talk his way into multiple counts of obstruction, money laundering and conspiracy.

  10. 10.

    Corner Stone

    January 25, 2018 at 8:38 pm

    Wonder which way Trump will tweet about this? That it’s Fake News and never happened? Or that if he had wanted to it would have been fine and no staff member could have stopped him.

  11. 11.

    oldgold

    January 25, 2018 at 8:39 pm

    How can you have an investigation when the individual being investigated has the power to fire the investigator; particularly, given the character of Trump and the GOP?

    It is not a tenable situation. Just effing ridiculous.

  12. 12.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    January 25, 2018 at 8:40 pm

    Trump doesn’t have a new version of Robert Bork around?

  13. 13.

    mike in dc

    January 25, 2018 at 8:41 pm

    At this point, I would characterize the obstruction question as “overdetermined”.

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 8:41 pm

    @David Anderson:
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/giap/1961-pwpa.pdf

    There’ll be a quiz at formation on Saturday AM.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 25, 2018 at 8:41 pm

    I’m not happy about this, I don’t think the Rs in Congress will flinch.

    But I find a silver lining in the fact that somebody in the White House decided to take a dump on Davos.

  16. 16.

    marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 8:43 pm

    @David Anderson: From the previous thread–there is a gold toilet at the Guggenheim for actual sitting shitting.

    Otherwise, if Mueller gets fired for real we hits the streets:

    NOBODY IS ABOVE THE LAW—MUELLER FIRING RAPID RESPONSE
    Donald Trump is publicly considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller, the person leading the Department of Justice investigation of possible illegal actions by Donald Trump and members of his presidential campaign, and the efforts to conceal those activities.

    This would be a constitutional crisis for our country. It would demand an immediate and unequivocal response to show that we will not tolerate abuse of power from Donald Trump.

    Our response in the minutes and hours following a power grab will dictate what happens next, and whether Congress—the only body with the constitutional power and obligation to rein Trump in from his rampage—will do anything to stand up to him.

    That’s why we’re preparing to hold emergency “Nobody is Above the Law” rallies around the country in the event they are needed.

  17. 17.

    JPL

    January 25, 2018 at 8:44 pm

    All it proves is Trump is a coward. When he couldn’t get cover from the White House Counsel, he chickened out. Paul and Mitch wouldn’t even blink, if it happened. There loyalty is to the Koch family.

  18. 18.

    Mike in NC

    January 25, 2018 at 8:44 pm

    Being a pathological liar who can’t go five minutes without telling a preposterous whopper, Trump will go to any length to never sit down with Mueller’s team.

  19. 19.

    lamh36

    January 25, 2018 at 8:45 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: my money is on someone in the former legal team, according to Gloria Bergen his current team is different than that team, being the leak

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 8:46 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: @David Anderson: Not only that, but more seriously than my flippant response, it isn’t going to go down because the President is a coward. He’s the worst type of bully, the one who folds the minute there’s a bit of pushback. And to be perfectly honest, most of the knuckleheads that have convinced themselves in comments sections at places most of the people here don’t read that they’re going to go all modern American revolutionary 3% tacticool on everyone else aren’t going to do so either. They’ll show up, they’ll threaten, and the first time someone drops one of them they’ll put their hands up. Happened with two carloads of Snack Team 6 after they watched Finicum live out his patriot-martyr fantasy. The Bundy brothers and the rest of their hangers on capitulated right quick after that.

    These people are in for the surprise of their lives when someone decides to teach them the old saw “G-d made man, Samuel Colt made all men equal” doesn’t just apply to white, Christian people.

  21. 21.

    JPL

    January 25, 2018 at 8:46 pm

    Trump’s speech at Davos should be interesting. There is no way, he doesn’t mention this.

  22. 22.

    raven

    January 25, 2018 at 8:47 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: 50th of Tet comin right up.

  23. 23.

    Manyakitty

    January 25, 2018 at 8:48 pm

    @David Anderson: Right??? Like I said a couple stops below, with the gusher of info we already got this week, I’m a little scared of tomorrow’s news dump. Feels like shit is starting to go down for real.

  24. 24.

    raven

    January 25, 2018 at 8:49 pm

    @Manyakitty: steady in the ranks. . .

  25. 25.

    sdhays

    January 25, 2018 at 8:50 pm

    @Mike in NC: True, but he’s also incredibly stupid and absolutely certain that his shit smells like roses, so it’s not impossible.

  26. 26.

    Sab

    January 25, 2018 at 8:52 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: You’re starting to sound like Goku.

  27. 27.

    Manyakitty

    January 25, 2018 at 8:52 pm

    @raven: Right on.

  28. 28.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 8:53 pm

    @Mr Stagger Lee: Actually in that case Bork got a bad rap. Watergate Assistant Special Prosecutor Nick Ackerman recently related on Ari Melber’s MSNBC show that Rucklehaus told him before he died that Rucklehaus, Richardson, and Bork had worked up a strategy to protect the DOJ from President Nixon completely subverting it and destroying the rule of law in case he ordered the firing of Special Counsel Cox. The strategy was that Richardson would refuse and resign. If that didn’t cause Nixon to rethink and retract his orders, then Rucklehaus would refuse and resign. If that didn’t cause Nixon to rethink and retract his orders, then Bork would carry them out and remain so that Nixon couldn’t replace all three of them and completely subvert the Department of Justice.

    While Judge Bork’s judicial philosophy, which I always found more coherent and interesting than Scalia’s and Thomas’s – even as I disagree with it, is extremely conservative. He has gotten a bad rap in regard to the Saturday Night Massacre.

  29. 29.

    marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 8:56 pm

    Little OT but still we need something to lighten the place up:

    Rep. Pat Meehan will not seek reelection amid a furor over his use of taxpayer dollars to settle a sexual harassment claim lodged by an aide, and the national response to his describing the woman as his “soul mate.”

    “After consultation with my wife Carolyn and with my three sons, and after prayerful reflection, I write to inform you that I will not seek re-election to the United States Congress for the 7th Congressional District in 2018,” the Delaware County Republican wrote Thursday in a letter to his campaign chairman. “Today I communicated the same to the office of Speaker Paul Ryan.”

    I am pretty sure this will make the district (depending on how the pre-November redistricting goes) lean D in the mid-terms. Savvier folks than I have suggested the state GOP (which holds the lede) might just concede this district to the Ds in exchange for making some surrounding ones slighter more safe for R incumbents.

  30. 30.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 8:56 pm

    @raven: Yep.

  31. 31.

    Mary G

    January 25, 2018 at 8:57 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Sometimes I fantasize about a group of these maroons deciding to invade California, thinking it’s a piece of cake because we don’t have a lot of guns. We would be Macaulay Culkin disposing of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.

  32. 32.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 8:57 pm

    @Sab: I was teasing. Though if you want to understand irregular, asymmetric, and unconventional warfare you might as well learn from, perhaps, the best strategist of them. Strategists like Giap are rare. Sun Tzu (or whoever actually wrote the Art of War), Jominy, Clausewitz, Mahan, Giap, Fall. There aren’t a lot of these guys around. And if they are, they don’t tend to write this stuff down.

  33. 33.

    JGabriel

    January 25, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Wonder which way Trump will tweet about this? That it’s Fake News and never happened? Or that if he had wanted to it would have been fine and no staff member could have stopped him.

    Both. They’re not mutually contradictory.

    Though even if they were, that’s never stopped Trump before.

  34. 34.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    January 25, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    @lamh36: Melania. “I will show you a stormy spanking. Better be fucking opening me a bank account in Switzerland!”

  35. 35.

    Patricia Kayden

    January 25, 2018 at 8:59 pm

    @David Anderson: Protest, register new voters, support organizations dedicated to fighting voter suppression and vote. Not sure what else we can do.

  36. 36.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:02 pm

    @Mary G: As I’ve repeatedly written: one or more of these morons is going to get in the face of a well off, professional ethnic American who conceal carries and pull their MAGA and America First and white supremacy crap in a stand your ground state. And that person is going to stand their ground. And at that point there will be a significant amount of rethinking a number of arguments regarding the 2nd Amendment, as well as liberty and freedom.

  37. 37.

    Patricia Kayden

    January 25, 2018 at 9:03 pm

    @JPL: He has no shame so he can say pretty much anything once he goes off script. He doesn’t represent me so I won’t be embarrassed or shocked.

  38. 38.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 25, 2018 at 9:03 pm

    OT: Greg Siskind summarizes WH plan for slashing legal immigration in return for giving a reprieve to DACA recipients.
    Poison pill # 1: Citizens will not be able to sponsor their parents (not just DACA recipients)
    Poison pill# 2: Loss of DACA status upon losing your job and you become instantly deportable.

  39. 39.

    JGabriel

    January 25, 2018 at 9:08 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Poison pill# 2: Loss of DACA status upon losing your job and you become instantly deportable.

    That sounds like a recipe for employer abuse.

  40. 40.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:10 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I have long been saying that Trump is a coward who can’t even fire people. I think I said it on an earlier thread today, although it might have been on Twitter, and now that I recall, it was that he won’t start a war deliberately. He’s stupid enough to blunder into one, though.

    He is a coward, and we see that over and over again. He can’t even straightforwardly disagree with people because he so wants their approval. And yeah, he’s not going to fire anyone. Although he could mess up somehow if nobody like McGahn is around to help him out.

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:10 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Will be DOA in the Senate.

  42. 42.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 25, 2018 at 9:11 pm

    I want the President to explain why it is necessary to slash legal immigration by 50%. Will any of the media toadies ask this question?

  43. 43.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 25, 2018 at 9:12 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: It better be.

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 9:13 pm

    Just now tuning in to Maddow now…wow…

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 9:14 pm

    @Corner Stone: wait, what?? These aren’t the actions of an innocent man?

  46. 46.

    Shana

    January 25, 2018 at 9:14 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Wasn’t it Black Panthers in California doing that that got whatever watered down gun control we got in the 70s?

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:17 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: No arguments at all.

    Although he could mess up somehow if nobody like McGahn is around to help him out.

    This is honestly my biggest worry. Despite all the legitimate concerns and gripes with many of the people working in the senior White House positions, right now these are the closest we’re getting to the best personnel that this administration will have. Usually you start an administration with a whole bunch of A listers, they start to filter out between the end of year one and year two to be replaced by more junior, less experienced people who because of the experience they’ll pick up, become A listers for the next administration from their preferred party. But in this case almost all the A listers aren’t really A listers. And when they go, they’re not going to get replaced, if they get replaced at all, with smart and competent, but less experienced B listers. So regardless of what you think of them, imagine what you’re going to have around the President when McGahn and McMaster and Mattis decide it is time to move on? Stephen Miller is on record stating he plans to serve for all four years. Does anyone really want Miller left alone in the White House with the President without McGahn or McMaster or Mattis or even Kelly around?

  48. 48.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 25, 2018 at 9:17 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I hope you are right.

  49. 49.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 9:18 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: well…that scenario is certainly cheaper than arming every non-Norwegian-American, and probably equally powerful

  50. 50.

    Baud

    January 25, 2018 at 9:20 pm

    @lamh36: Maybe there’s some big Dem hit piece coming. …

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 25, 2018 at 9:20 pm

    @Shana: Yes.

  52. 52.

    realbtl

    January 25, 2018 at 9:21 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks for bringing these nuanced little tidbits Adam. I need to investigate and rethink.

  53. 53.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:21 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Yep

  54. 54.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 25, 2018 at 9:22 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Stop it. Kelly’s no better than Miller, and I think you know it.

  55. 55.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:22 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Senator Warner has already says he’s got no stomach for completely revisiting and redoing the entire US immigration system right now. DACA fix, a couple of other tweaks/adjustments, but that’s it. The issue isn’t going to be the Senate, there aren’t 60 votes for what Miller is peddling, let alone the Cotton-Perdue plan. The issue is going to be the House. Even if you get a clean DACA fix with a sweetener or two, such as some border security enhancement money, Ryan will never violate the Hastert Rule to bring it up for a vote in the House. And the Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Group (combined that’s about 180 or so GOP members of the House) have already said they want something much more in line with what Miller pitched today. My estimate is what Miller pitched today was created in collaboration with the Freedom Caucus and the Study Group. They intend to jam the Senate, not have the Senate jam them.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 9:22 pm

    Btw, Twitter Dick Nixon ( and people replying to him ) are absolutely hysterical at the moment , in a good way

  57. 57.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 9:23 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: As I am learning the details this does sound worse and worse. Not much of a DACA reprieve with that #2. After all, how many of us have stayed fully employed every year for a decade or a decade & a half (at least since the new century). Staying long-term fully employed used to be easier.

  58. 58.

    Corner Stone

    January 25, 2018 at 9:23 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Does anyone really want Miller left alone in the White House with the President without McGahn or McMaster or Mattis or even Kelly around?

    McGahn, McMaster and Mattis have nothing to do with it. Kelly is at minimum backstopping Miller, at worst turbocharging him.

  59. 59.

    jl

    January 25, 2018 at 9:23 pm

    If Mueller is following the money and collusion wherever it leads, his team might do more to fend off future Russian attempts at corrupting voter rolls and elections than the malevolently negligent Congress. Trumpsters may have been too bumbling and incompetent to be worth colluding with, so Russia finally decided went through NRA to actually get something done. The real action might be up that road, unless one problem is Trump did a deal, took some money from oligarchs, and couldn’t deliver (which would not be surprising). Edit, and I am not sure even Trump is dumb enough to have done that last bit, though it is a possibility.

  60. 60.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 9:23 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: just another skirmish in the slow moving, stop and start republican Civil War

  61. 61.

    Kay

    January 25, 2018 at 9:24 pm

    @AaronBlake
    5m5 minutes ago
    More
    Kellyanne Conway in August, 2 months after Trump’s aborted firing of Mueller, denied it was even discussed:
    “The president hasn’t even discussed that.”

    They all lie so much you wonder if they believe anything they say to one another. Ask Kellyanne, she’ll lie and then ask several other people, who will probably lie also.

  62. 62.

    Corner Stone

    January 25, 2018 at 9:25 pm

    @Jeffro: Just seems tiresome to keep having people doubt that this person will do any and every thing he can to save his ass.

  63. 63.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:25 pm

    @Shana: Correct. They had determined, correctly, that there was a loophole in California’s firearm laws regarding open carry of unloaded long guns. So they took to carrying unloaded rifles and shotguns everywhere. When they showed up at the state capital, armed with their unloaded rifles and shotguns, to protest on the same day a bunch of school kids (read that as white school kids) and their teachers and chaperones were there. As you can imagine a good time was had by all resulting in Governor Reagan and the California legislature hitting the brakes to write, pass, and sign restrictive gun control legislation so hard it left skid marks.

  64. 64.

    Gelfling 545

    January 25, 2018 at 9:26 pm

    @marcopolo: You know, prayerful reflection: Christ, wtf am I going to do?

  65. 65.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 9:27 pm

    @Shana: Yes. The image of POC walking around on the streets with long guns in Oakland freaked out a lot of uncolored politicians.

    Edit—see Adam beat me to it.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:27 pm

    @Jeffro: When it happens, and eventually it will, it is going to be very interesting.

  67. 67.

    JPL

    January 25, 2018 at 9:28 pm

    @Patricia Kayden: The one thing that did happen is the republicans can no longer turn a blind eye, so to speak. He’ll go off script and I like you won’t care, but now some will no longer be able to support him, if and when he does.

  68. 68.

    Shana

    January 25, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Kind of nice when my sketchy historical knowledge is actually right. Thanks.

  69. 69.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    .@MarkWarner responds to tonight's NYT report: pic.twitter.com/zxuoTSdMSA

    — rcohen (@rcohen) January 26, 2018

    Warner, of course, is a Democrat. Whether his raising a ruckus would make a difference is an open question. Nixon’s Republicans backed him until they didn’t. It happens suddenly. Every statement from a D or R to this effect brings that day a little closer.

  70. 70.

    JR

    January 25, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: no love for Napoleon?

  71. 71.

    Gravenstone

    January 25, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    Which goes to show what already knew. Trump is a moron, bully and ultimately a coward. Not necessarily in that order.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:29 pm

    @Baud: Perhaps something about email and server management?

  73. 73.

    B.B.A.

    January 25, 2018 at 9:31 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Trumpists will support Trump to the very end. It’s a cult.

  74. 74.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:31 pm

    @realbtl: I was just fortunate I had the TV on in the background when Ackerman related it. Had he not done so, I wouldn’t know either. Apparently Rucklehaus, Richardson, and Bork never really talked about it. Makes you wonder what other important bits and bobs or babs of history we don’t know because the principles decided not to talk about it.

  75. 75.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:32 pm

    @JR: Knew I forgot someone.

  76. 76.

    JMG

    January 25, 2018 at 9:33 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Reaction from the House Rs was not favorable, or so several Congressional reporters have posted on Twitter. They don’t want any concessions at all. Whole thing’s off the table for a day or two now, as tomorrow will be all Trump-Mueller all the time and those Rs will be making themselves unavailable for comment. Then comes the weekend. And you’d be surprised, or probably not, to know how many of our elected officials will be traveling to the Super Bowl next week.

  77. 77.

    Another Scott

    January 25, 2018 at 9:33 pm

    Remember that $1,000,000,000,000 Infrastructure Bill? Yeah, that one.

    Roll Call:

    Trump Adviser Says Infrastructure Push Won’t Have New Revenue

    Amtrak, transit programs will be cut instead, he says

    White House infrastructure adviser DJ Gribbin told a gathering of the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Thursday that the Trump administration’s upcoming infrastructure proposal will not include any new revenue to pay for $200 billion of new federal spending.

    The White House’s proposal, to be shared one to two weeks after the Jan. 30 State of the Union address, would be paid for with money from existing transportation programs, Gribbin said, adding that existing formula funding for major programs would not be touched. He later clarified that certain federal transportation money, including for Amtrak and transit programs, would be cut to pay for the program.

    […]

    Tomato, tomato, potato, potato.

    Seriously – Was anyone ever fooled by this? Beuler? Beuler?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    January 25, 2018 at 9:34 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Was anyone ever fooled by this? 

    Yes.

  79. 79.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:35 pm

    @JMG: Tomorrow AM Davos time, middle of the night our time, will be the President’s speech to the World Economic Forum. So that should go well to now that he’ll be stewing all night about this revelation in the Times.

  80. 80.

    quakerinabasement

    January 25, 2018 at 9:36 pm

    Usually, Trump phrases his denial as: “There IS no collusion.” Maybe it depends of the meaning of “is.”

  81. 81.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:38 pm

    @Another Scott: Imagine that, the one funding cut these chuckleheads are going to do is to the type of transportation one finds in NY, NJ, MA, Philadelphia, etc. I’m sure Gary Cohn is going to get an earful from his Wall Street buddies. If the President keeps this up, he won’t be able to go back to Trump Tower when he leaves office because New Yorkers will prevent it.

  82. 82.

    Mary G

    January 25, 2018 at 9:38 pm

    @Another Scott: Susan Collins and Jeff Flake prolly bought it.

  83. 83.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 9:39 pm

    So what’s the probability that it’s actually McGahn who is doing the leaking? I know he is the President’s legal counsel which would mean he’d be breaking all kinds of ethical/professional boundaries but at least in theory he is actually really the lawyer for the White House (i.e. the office of the President not necessarily the occupant). Just a crazy thought.

  84. 84.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:40 pm

    @quakerinabasement: Actually if you read what he said last night closely, he actually admitted offhandedly that the campaign had been in touch with Russia. Just that there was nothing wrong with it. I’ve seen two types of analysis on this: 1) He just admitted to what he and his people and supporters have been denying or 2) it sounds like it, but it is part of his normal garbled, mangled word salad, so…

  85. 85.

    efgoldman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:40 pm

    @Feebog:

    he refuses the interview and Mueller hauls his fat ass in front of the Grand Jury.

    It’s a real constitutional question whether Mueller can. Even if yes, it it will be tied up in court forever and ever amen.
    Paula Jones isn’t necessarily on point. That was civil litigation, this would be criminal.

  86. 86.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 9:41 pm

    @Another Scott: it’s very in line with what the Kochs and Mercers want, that’s for sure

  87. 87.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 25, 2018 at 9:41 pm

    @Another Scott: So they’re going to cut transit funding to build highways, that’s the forward thinkin’ I expect from the administration.

  88. 88.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 25, 2018 at 9:43 pm

    @efgoldman: US v. Nixon is on point, the answer is yes.

  89. 89.

    M. Bouffant

    January 25, 2018 at 9:43 pm

    @efgoldman: I’m eagerly awaiting the gun battle between the Secret Service & the U.S. Marshals or whichever agency comes to take Trump to his interrogation.

  90. 90.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:44 pm

    Washington Post confirms the story with two sources. Developing.

    And some background from June.

  91. 91.

    Patricia Kayden

    January 25, 2018 at 9:45 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: So under Republicans, DACA beneficiaries will never be afforded a path to citizenship? That’s the only way #2 would make any sense.

  92. 92.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:46 pm

    @M. Bouffant:

    I’m eagerly awaiting the gun battle between the Secret Service & the U.S. Marshals

    Eagles of Justice, sent by the Marshal of the Supreme Court on behalf of the 46th President of the United States Orin Hatch to drag them to the gallows being erected on Pennsylvania Avenue. Or something like that.//

  93. 93.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 25, 2018 at 9:46 pm

    @JGabriel: a feature, not a bug.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 25, 2018 at 9:47 pm

    @JR: I think that Boney is included in this: And if they are, they don’t tend to write this stuff down.

  95. 95.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:47 pm

    Trump was deposed in 2006. It was a disaster. Underprepared and overconfident.

  96. 96.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 25, 2018 at 9:47 pm

    @M. Bouffant: There will be no gun battle, the Secret Service are sworn to uphold the law and will haul his ass down to the courthouse.

  97. 97.

    mike in dc

    January 25, 2018 at 9:48 pm

    @efgoldman: US v Nixon and the Clinton case both tend to point strongly towards Trump having to testify. And he has no presidential defense to testifying about pre-presidential activities during the campaign and transition period. I can’t imagine it taking longer than a year and a half, and in the Nixon case SCOTUS ruled pretty quickly.

  98. 98.

    schrodingers_cat

    January 25, 2018 at 9:48 pm

    @Patricia Kayden: There is a path, it will take 10/12 years. f they lose their job while in DACA status then they would be deported.

  99. 99.

    JMG

    January 25, 2018 at 9:48 pm

    @Marcopolo: Oh, I think it’s obvious McGahn’s the leak. For one thing, he’s the good guy in the story. He is signaling to both Mueller and Trump’s lawyers that he thinks he’s being asked to do things that could put his own butt in legal jeopardy and he;ll squeal rather than do that.

  100. 100.

    jl

    January 25, 2018 at 9:48 pm

    The regular news is becoming a weird half-baked SNL skit that I don’t get. I think that even after the FBI secret society BS was revealed to be asinine BS based on one joke text, GOP Housers are on TV still saying it is serious and needs to be investigated?

    Do I have the right? If so, do they have any idea how moronic it looks to everyone? I note the GOP Senator, Kennedy, just admitted that it might have been a joke. But the House GOPers are still flailing away. Makes me wonder how much of the House GOP Mueller might scoop up before he’s done.

  101. 101.

    efgoldman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:49 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    he won’t start a war deliberately. He’s stupid enough to blunder into one, though.

    This isn’t the 14th century. The sovereign no longer leads the troops on the battlefield. He can stay comfy in his LaZ-Boy while the killing goes on.

  102. 102.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:49 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Daniel Dale has been posting the President’s daily schedule, and it looked to me like his speech will be at 2pm Davos time, 8am Eastern time.

  103. 103.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 25, 2018 at 9:51 pm

    @efgoldman: Jones v. Clinton isn’t on point, but U.S. v. Nixon definitely is.

    To read the Art. II powers of the President as providing an absolute privilege as against a subpoena essential to enforcement of criminal statutes on no more than a generalized claim of the public interest in confidentiality of nonmilitary and nondiplomatic discussions would upset the constitutional balance of “a workable government” and gravely impair the role of the courts under Art. III.

  104. 104.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:51 pm

    @Marcopolo: McGahn is mentioned a lot on Twitter as the possible leaker, but I agree there are reasons to wonder about that. But the NYT has, I think, four sources, and the WaPo two.

  105. 105.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:51 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Exhibit A:

    Exhibit B:

    If anyone is wondering, here’s Jr’s deposition as a bonus:

  106. 106.

    Baud

    January 25, 2018 at 9:51 pm

    @jl:

    do they have any idea how moronic it looks to everyone? 

    Not everyone.

  107. 107.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 25, 2018 at 9:52 pm

    @efgoldman: Eh, with what army? As Adam has pointed out, there are no troops, unless he wants to fire up the draft.

  108. 108.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:52 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: But, but, but what about the Marshal of the Supreme Court and the Eagles of Justice? I was promised Eagles of Justice!

  109. 109.

    chris

    January 25, 2018 at 9:53 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: So, white homeland it is then. Stephen (spit) Miller must be so proud.

  110. 110.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:53 pm

    @efgoldman: I think he is enough of a coward that he doesn’t want to be responsible for the killing.

  111. 111.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 9:53 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Build TOLL highways. So you, me, and all the other plebes get the opportunity to pay the MAN for the rest of our driven lives.

  112. 112.

    Baud

    January 25, 2018 at 9:54 pm

    @Marcopolo: It’ll incentivize you to earn more money.

  113. 113.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 25, 2018 at 9:55 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: You’ve been reading too many comic books young man.

  114. 114.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:56 pm

    @mike in dc: And if you’re Trump’s attorneys, do you really want to give Mueller 18 more months to poke around while you wait for this to be resolved right in the middle of the 2020 campaign cycle?

  115. 115.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:57 pm

    @JMG: He’s already been interviewed by Mueller’s team. I’m sure he’s already told them this information.

  116. 116.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 9:57 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Amazing! But I’m not gonna throw away a couple of hours of my life on that. Thanks anyway.

  117. 117.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:57 pm

    @jl: You’re not dealing with very smart people here. Nor ones with a lot of integrity either.

  118. 118.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 25, 2018 at 9:58 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: now, now. Some of those comic book writers are real mensches.

  119. 119.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:58 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I making fun of Mensch and Taylor.

  120. 120.

    JMG

    January 25, 2018 at 9:59 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Yep, I agree with that completely. This is a warning to Trump’s lawyers and Trump. “I can go public with stuff if you fire Mueller.”

  121. 121.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:59 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: I don’t blame you. Just being thorough.

  122. 122.

    efgoldman

    January 25, 2018 at 9:59 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    US v. Nixon is on point, the answer is yes.

    Did they actually call Tricksie before the grand jury? I’m not sure they did, but it was a long time…

  123. 123.

    B.B.A.

    January 25, 2018 at 9:59 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Would you believe Hawks of Justice? …how about Pigeons of Jersey City?

  124. 124.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 25, 2018 at 9:59 pm

    @M. Bouffant: The Secret Service are there to protect the President from physical harm. They aren’t his goon squad. That’s ICE and the Border Patrol.

  125. 125.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 10:00 pm

    Bannon is speculated as a source. I find that plausible.

  126. 126.

    bystander

    January 25, 2018 at 10:02 pm

    @David Anderson:

    So what do we do when shit goes down?

    Spray the air with celebratory gunfire while ululating freely in the Jersey City air?

  127. 127.

    jl

    January 25, 2018 at 10:02 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Burr better be telling the truth when he promised that the new secret private military force slush fund would be gone within a month. Otherwise maybe Trump can hire himself his private WH goon squad under cover of law.

  128. 128.

    Corner Stone

    January 25, 2018 at 10:03 pm

    Anyone who thinks Trump has let this idea of firing Mueller go needs to check their meds.

  129. 129.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 10:03 pm

    Now the Post has the story, too.

    The top 2 U.S. papers, hours apart, suggests a leak designed to maximize impact. And w POTUS abroad, the entire senior WH staff is asleep, bc it’s 3:49AM in Davos. If I were going to leak, now might be the time.

    WaPo: https://t.co/SaTtNIvlMI https://t.co/QriPT3TwiR

    — Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) January 26, 2018

    This type of story doesn’t happen by accident, where 4 sources all know about a request the president made to his WH counsel, and all corroborate it to reporters. With no denial from McGahn.

    This suggests McGahn’s team wants it known that he stood up to Trump. https://t.co/a0guyqBiwS

    — Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) January 26, 2018

  130. 130.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:05 pm

    @Bobby Thomson: Bingo!

  131. 131.

    efgoldman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:05 pm

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Jones v. Clinton isn’t on point, but U.S. v. Nixon definitely is.

    As I said, memory is foggy over 40+ years, but didn’t US vs Nixon compel release of the tapes, rather than Tricksie’s direct testimony before a grand jury? Or did the decision say they could call him, but they never did?

  132. 132.

    Capri

    January 25, 2018 at 10:05 pm

    @Roger Moore: I still think there’s a place for ” Benedict Donald”@Roger Moore:

  133. 133.

    Patricia Kayden

    January 25, 2018 at 10:06 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Mueller’s interview of Trump just got more interesting now that he knows that Trump has tried to fire him. Ha!!

  134. 134.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:06 pm

    @B.B.A.: I might settle for Cockatiels of the Court. But that is as far as I will go.

  135. 135.

    TS

    January 25, 2018 at 10:06 pm

    @Marcopolo: I hear that he is the counsel to the Presidency – not to the President. And my thought is he does not want to be the next John Dean. He is not going to prison for this President

  136. 136.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:07 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Actually that was Keith Schiller. Who was quickly sent packing by Kelly.

  137. 137.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:07 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: That would be my best estimate too. He’s telegraphing ahead of his interview that he has all the goods.

  138. 138.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 10:08 pm

    @Patricia Kayden: And I’ll bet there’s still more that Mueller knows that we don’t!

  139. 139.

    efgoldman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:08 pm

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    Eh, with what army?

    Correct.
    It doesn’t take a regiment to fire a missile.
    I think, and have thought, that somehow Mattis and the boys would stop it,but you never know…..

  140. 140.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:09 pm

    @jl: That wasn’t a private military force slush fund. Rather it was a relaxing/waiving of the rules for reprogramming funds for the intel community, thereby functionally removing them from congressional oversight.

  141. 141.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 10:09 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: I’m actually positing McGahn as a modern day deepthroat or John Dean and to have been leaking stuff all along(for months) , not just tonight’s nugget.

    Want to give a shout out to Lawrence O’Donnell who just gave credit to April Ryan for originally reporting out this story (that Trump was thinking about firing Mueller) back in June. She scooped it first, though it didn’t get the attention it deserved at the time.

  142. 142.

    efgoldman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:11 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    he doesn’t want to be responsible for the killing.

    I really don’t think he cares. They’re not people, they’re abstractions His mind doesn’t work that way. Guilt isn’t an emotion associated with pure idiot narcissism.

  143. 143.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 25, 2018 at 10:12 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: With all due respect, I still see them acting as a goon squad. I may be less vocal about it that s_c but immigration is a hot button issue for me. It touches too many people I care about. And so many others.

  144. 144.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 10:12 pm

    Politico has one source. Definitely a coordinated leak. The sources at the different publications may overlap, so this might be (probably is, IMHO) a source for the NYT and WaPo stories too.

    Deleted and edited to add the link.

  145. 145.

    JPL

    January 25, 2018 at 10:12 pm

    Somewhere Melania is laughing.

  146. 146.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 10:13 pm

    @Marcopolo: It’s certainly possible. As others on this thread have noted, McGahn has the example of John Dean before him.

  147. 147.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 10:15 pm

    @Patricia Kayden: Well, it was always going to be interesting knowing that Trumpov’s opening statement…and all the following ones…were just going to be, “Didja ask Hillary that? Under oath? Didjadidjadidja? THOT NOT!!!”

  148. 148.

    Mary G

    January 25, 2018 at 10:16 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Me three. I’ve had Miller on my radar since he was acting up in high school and he is straight out of the Hitler fan club, and I have never Godwinned before. that I can think of.

    ETA: And I have a lot of experience with ICE & CBP and they were all straight out pigs.

    @efgoldman: I’m afraid he thinks starting a war will up his approval ratings/distract from the avalanche of Mueller news that’s starting down the mountain.

  149. 149.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 25, 2018 at 10:16 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Dean was still disbarred. Getting ahead of that might be a good idea.

  150. 150.

    TS

    January 25, 2018 at 10:16 pm

    @Marcopolo:

    Want to give a shout out to Lawrence O’Donnell who just gave credit to April Ryan for originally reporting out this story (that Trump was thinking about firing Mueller) back in June. She scooped it first, though it didn’t get the attention it deserved at the time.

    And we don’t have to guess why April’s reporting doesn’t get the attention it deserves

  151. 151.

    efgoldman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:17 pm

    @JPL:

    Somewhere Melania is laughing.

    In a soundproofed Swiss hotel room

  152. 152.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:17 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Without a doubt. No argument here. They are definitely doing that. But that is different than having a praetorian guard inside the White House to protect the President from anything and everything.

  153. 153.

    Immanentize

    January 25, 2018 at 10:17 pm

    Trump:. I know what Nixon would do We’ll get Bork to fire him!
    Stone:. He’s dead too.

  154. 154.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    @Mary G: Yes on the ideology, but Miller isn’t going to physically intercede to physically protect the President.

  155. 155.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    @efgoldman: Alas, no, it has been noted in the news that Melania is at present in West Palm Beach.

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/palm-beach/fl-reg-melania-arrives-west-palm-20180125-story.html

  156. 156.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 25, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Okay. With that, I agree.

    ETA: No excuse for the Yoda syntax.

  157. 157.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    @efgoldman: Actually she stayed in DC. Didn’t make the trip.

  158. 158.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 10:19 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Oh yes. I didn’t intend to imply that Dean’s example was good.

  159. 159.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 10:20 pm

    Sorta on-topic, just occurred to me to ask: is there some sort of national moratorium on media figures asking GOP elected officials about how they feel about “TRUMP NEWS ITEM #1!”, “TRUMP NEWS ITEM #2!!”, or “TRUMP NEWS ITEM #3!!!” on any given day?

    It’s endless opining by Dems and media talking heads. Where’s the on-camera Qs for Rubio, Cruz, Ernst, Ryan, McConnell, and so on? (Ideally, in the reverse): “Senator/Speaker, if a Democratic president had been about to attempt to fire a Special Counsel looking into his & his campaign’s collaboration with a hostile foreign power, and then his personal attorney talked him out of it…would you want to know what that was all about?”

    And so on.

    Let’s get some cameras and recorders in front of the Goopers! Right now they’re having it both ways and paying no price for their tacit acceptance of treason.

  160. 160.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:21 pm

    @Immanentize: As I wrote above:
    https://balloon-juice.com/2018/01/25/tricky-dickless/#comment-6729752

    Actually in that case Bork got a bad rap. Watergate Assistant Special Prosecutor Nick Ackerman recently related on Ari Melber’s MSNBC show that Rucklehaus told him before he died that Rucklehaus, Richardson, and Bork had worked up a strategy to protect the DOJ from President Nixon completely subverting it and destroying the rule of law in case he ordered the firing of Special Counsel Cox. The strategy was that Richardson would refuse and resign. If that didn’t cause Nixon to rethink and retract his orders, then Rucklehaus would refuse and resign. If that didn’t cause Nixon to rethink and retract his orders, then Bork would carry them out and remain so that Nixon couldn’t replace all three of them and completely subvert the Department of Justice.

    While Judge Bork’s judicial philosophy, which I always found more coherent and interesting than Scalia’s and Thomas’s – even as I disagree with it, is extremely conservative. He has gotten a bad rap in regard to the Saturday Night Massacre.

  161. 161.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 25, 2018 at 10:21 pm

    @efgoldman: the decision says that a general claim of presidential immunity cannot outweigh the public interest in a criminal prosecution, and specifically upheld subpoenas for the Nixon tapes.

    I don’t think there is any meaningful difference between a subpoena duces tecum (for documents) and a subpoena ad testificandum (for testimony).

  162. 162.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:22 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Schiller’s job was to be muscle. To do dirty deeds. That was it.

  163. 163.

    JPL

    January 25, 2018 at 10:24 pm

    @efgoldman: Probably at Trump Tower in NYC with her special friend.

    Or West Palm Beach.. lol

  164. 164.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 10:25 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: Though he is now a “redeemed” elder statesman :).

  165. 165.

    TS

    January 25, 2018 at 10:25 pm

    @Jeffro:

    Let’s get some cameras and recorders in front of the Goopers! Right now they’re having it both ways and paying no price for their tacit acceptance of treason.

    The continuing question “What if Obama had done this”?

  166. 166.

    Another Scott

    January 25, 2018 at 10:26 pm

    @efgoldman: I would have thought I would have remembered Nixon testifying before a grand jury, and I have no recollection of it. FTFNYT tells why – It was in 1975:

    For 11 hours of secret grand jury testimony 36 years ago, Richard M. Nixon, a disgraced former president, fenced with prosecutors over his role in the Watergate scandals, bemoaned politics as a dirty business played by both sides and testily — as he described his own demeanor — suggested he was the victim of a special prosecutor’s office loaded with Democrats.

    The testimony, which Nixon presumably thought would always remain secret, was released by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif., on Thursday in response to an order by a judge. The transcripts offered a remarkable portrait of Nixon after he left office: bitter at his disgrace and cynical about politics. He presented himself as a victim of governmental abuses by his enemies during his long career in politics, and said that prosecutors, with an eye to ingratiating themselves with the Washington media “and the Georgetown set,” were out to destroy him.

    “In politics, some pretty rough tactics are used,” he said. “We deplore them all.”

    At one point, as he denied that his White House had engaged in anything out of the ordinary, he spoke with grudging admiration of what he said were the hardball tactics used against him by the Kennedy White House, asserting that it had directed the I.R.S. and other government agencies to discredit him as he ran for governor of California.

    “They were pretty smart, I guess,” he said. “Rather than using a group of amateur Watergate bugglers, burglars — well they were bunglers — they used the F.B.I., used the I.R.S. and used it directly by their own orders against, in one instance, a man who had been vice president of the United States, running for governor.”

    By the time Nixon appeared at the grand jury, on June 23 and 24 of 1975, he had, by virtue of his pardon by Gerald R. Ford, immunity from any crimes he had committed, though he was still subject to perjury charges based on what he said to this grand jury. Nixon, a lawyer, repeatedly answered questions in a hedged and clipped manner, often saying he did not recall conversations, some of them just two years old.

    […]

    So, the question of a sitting president being called before a grand jury still stands, I think…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  167. 167.

    JPL

    January 25, 2018 at 10:26 pm

    @Marcopolo: Now I feeling sorta bad for their son. Do they just not care?

  168. 168.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 25, 2018 at 10:27 pm

    @Marcopolo: He did the right thing in the end. He has atoned for years.

  169. 169.

    Bobby Thomson

    January 25, 2018 at 10:28 pm

    OT, but Patrick Meehan has decided not to run for re-election, bringing the number of PA open seats to five. Sestak would be a shoe-in to take the seat back but after the complete lack of loyalty the party showed him last year I would imagine he would tell them to stick it.

  170. 170.

    Corner Stone

    January 25, 2018 at 10:29 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: Sounds a little iffy. Bork was a nut job and a true believer. There’s a reason he got Borked.

  171. 171.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 10:30 pm

    @TS: Well, isn’t the answer: 1) When Trump is attacked he fights back—ordering Mueller’s firing isn’t obstructing, it’s counterpunching!; 2) and by the way, Mueller has to quit now—there’s no way he can pursue an unbiased investigation if he knows Trump tried to fire him!

    And no, I’m not watching Fox but I predict that IS what they are saying.

  172. 172.

    Mary G

    January 25, 2018 at 10:32 pm

    I know lots of you all follow Oliver Willis and have been enjoying his twitter series of imaginary conversations, such as:

    "But this is really about the Clintons""Again"
    "But this is really about the Clintons""Again"
    "But this is really about the Clintons"
    "Fuck, Sean, I'm just not believing it. Is anybody buying this shit?"
    "No," Hannity quietly replied, staring at the soul-black tile.— Oliver Willis (@owillis) January 26, 2018

    He has put out a book of them now, called the Deepest State, on Amazon for $1.99, or if you have Kindle Unlimited, free, and he’s psyched 200+ people have bought it, so if you want, check it out.

    ETA: Rats, FYWP always leaves out the line breaks and my attempts to fix them are horrible.

  173. 173.

    Immanentize

    January 25, 2018 at 10:33 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: in the end, Bork did the deed. And didn’t do much to save the DOJ. That sounds like some serious revisionist history, Adam:

    The ”massacre” that occurred Oct. 20, 1973, was the action by Mr. Bork, then Solicitor General of the United States, in dismissing Archibald Cox as the Watergate special prosecutor. It was the culmination of months of legal maneuvering between the White House and Mr. Cox over whether Mr. Nixon would surrender nine tape recordings of conversations in the White House. Some of the tapes had a bearing on allegations that the President participated in a cover-up of the break-in that took place June 17, 1972, at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex here. Order by Nixon Defied

    On Oct 19, the Friday before the dismissal of Mr. Cox, Mr. Nixon refused to accept the order by a Federal appeals court to surrender the tapes and ordered Mr. Cox to drop his investigation.

    On Saturday afternoon Mr. Cox, defying the President, said he would seek a court order effectively forcing the President to turn over the tapes. Mr. Nixon then directed the Attorney General, Elliot L. Richardson, to dismiss Mr. Cox, whom Mr. Richardson had appointed five months earlier.

    Mr. Richardson resigned. The second-ranking official in the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus, was called by the White House chief of staff, Alexander M. Haig Jr., and asked to carry out the dismissal of Mr. Cox.

    ”I simply could not do it,” Mr. Ruckelshaus said in a later interview. He wrote out a letter of resignation, but the White House did not wait to receive it before announcing that Mr. Ruckelshaus himself had been dismissed. ‘I Did the Right Thing’

    That left Mr. Bork, the Solictor General, as Acting Attorney General. He dismissed Mr. Cox on the President’s orders, a move that ignited a storm of criticism from Congress and set the stage for impeachment proceedings against Mr. Nixon.

    Later that year, recalling the events surrounding Mr. Cox’s dismissal, Mr. Bork said in an interview: ”I was thinking of resigning not out of moral considerations. I did not want to be perceived as a man who did the President’s bidding to save my job.”

    He added: ”I had some time to think about it since. I think I did the right thing.

    linky. Doesn’t it worry you that none of the three principals ever received that story in public when they were alive?

  174. 174.

    SiubhanDuinne

    January 25, 2018 at 10:34 pm

    @marcopolo:

    and after prayerful reflection

    Not to be religiously intolerant or anything, but this phrase always makes me want to smack the shit out of the person who said it.

  175. 175.

    Another Scott

    January 25, 2018 at 10:35 pm

    @Corner Stone: Yeah, there were reasonable arguments to be made about “protecting the DoJ”, but Bork wasn’t the guy to do it.

    Wikipedia:

    In his posthumously published memoirs, Bork stated that following the firings, Nixon promised him the next seat on the Supreme Court. Nixon was unable to carry out the promise after resigning in the wake of the Watergate scandal, but eventually, in 1987, Ronald Reagan nominated Bork for the Supreme Court.[17]

    Quid pro quo, anyone?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  176. 176.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 10:35 pm

    @Bobby Thomson: See my comment @29. I suspect there’s a good chance that District gets remapped to make it slightly more D so the surrounding ones get made more R. It’s a sensible sacrifice with the court order & Meehan’s effup.

  177. 177.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:35 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    House Rs not happy w/this new WH immigration plan -> "This is the beginning of the end of the GOP majority in the House. In a year when the Democrats impeach Trump, we can point to this moment," one R on the call tells me.

    — Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) January 25, 2018

  178. 178.

    Marcopolo

    January 25, 2018 at 10:37 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne: Amen Sister!

  179. 179.

    chris

    January 25, 2018 at 10:38 pm

    @jl:

    House GOPers are still flailing away. Makes me wonder how much of the House GOP Mueller might scoop up before he’s done.

    I still think there’s something hidden about Jason Chaffetz’s abrupt departure from the house last year. Or he saw the writing on the wall and wanted no part of it but I doubt that.

  180. 180.

    But her emails!!!

    January 25, 2018 at 10:40 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I keep seeing this without any context. Why are they not happy? Because it takes a huge shit on legal immigrants and even Dreamers (they get deported if they lose their jobs) or because it isn’t bad enough to satisfy them? They want the Dreamers fed to sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads?

  181. 181.

    Bill Arnold

    January 25, 2018 at 10:41 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    If the President keeps this up, he won’t be able to go back to Trump Tower when he leaves office because New Yorkers will prevent it.

    I’m probably not alone in thinking that there is a reasonably high probability that he’d be strongly encouraged by NYSAG ES to move to a fenced gated community in upstate New York.

  182. 182.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 25, 2018 at 10:43 pm

    @Immanentize: If you’re still around, can I bother you to send that syllabus to Adam to send to me? Don’t want to be a pest about it, but I’m kinda interested.

  183. 183.

    B.B.A.

    January 25, 2018 at 10:44 pm

    @chris: Pretty obvious to me, he was only there for the Hitlery bashing. Once she was out of the picture he lost interest.

  184. 184.

    Immanentize

    January 25, 2018 at 10:46 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: can’t tonight. I’m also pretty sick with a gut infection and the cure (brutal antibiotics) seem worse than the illness. I will be out of work tomorrow so maybe Monday? Today’s class was the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Timely!

  185. 185.

    Timurid

    January 25, 2018 at 10:47 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The first recession will wipe them out.

  186. 186.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:48 pm

    @Corner Stone: @Immanentize: I am simply relating what former Watergate Assistant Special Prosecutor Nick Ackerman told Ari Melber on air. He was intimately involved with investigating and prosecuting Watergate and indicated that Rucklehaus told him this a few years before Rucklehaus died and that it is not part of the recorded history. That Ackerman accepts this as fact/truth is significant. You may do with the information what you will.

  187. 187.

    ? Martin

    January 25, 2018 at 10:50 pm

    @But her emails!!!:

    I keep seeing this without any context. Why are they not happy? Because it takes a huge shit on legal immigrants and even Dreamers (they get deported if they lose their jobs) or because it isn’t bad enough to satisfy them? They want the Dreamers fed to sharks with fricken laser beams attached to their heads?

    For one, they have been clear that a path to citizenship is a non-starter. For two, the ‘chain immigration’ will kill them in a lot of districts. There’s about 22 million voters in this country that are immigrants. The GOP is telling them that their families aren’t welcome. You can get citizenship but your kids can’t? Your spouse can’t? Your parents can’t?

    The GOP knows that these are issues that will drive Democratic turnout to record rates.

  188. 188.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 10:51 pm

    @But her emails!!!: Correct. Any path to citizenship for anyone here in an undocumented status is a no go for them. Because they think that is what their base wants. Hence Breitbart accusing the President of being Amnesty Don on its front page today.

  189. 189.

    But her emails!!!

    January 25, 2018 at 10:54 pm

    @? Martin: So both. They want to screw over Dreamers, but don’t want to piss off citizens who have family they also want to become citizens.

  190. 190.

    chris

    January 25, 2018 at 10:55 pm

    @B.B.A.: Guess we’ll see if Mueller let’s him keep his job at fox.

  191. 191.

    Gin & Tonic

    January 25, 2018 at 10:57 pm

    @Immanentize: Fuck, no, you need to do it now. I don’t care if you’re sick, my desire to get valuable information at no cost to myself outweighs any minor inconvenience to you.

    Um, maybe that wasn’t phrased elegantly.

    Sure, no problem. Hope you feel better soon. Many antibiotics are hell on my GI tract, too. Obviously I’m in no rush, and am well aware you’re doing me a favor.

  192. 192.

    Immanentize

    January 25, 2018 at 10:57 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: PS. I don’t think Ruckelshaus is yet dead.

  193. 193.

    Feebog

    January 25, 2018 at 10:57 pm

    @efgoldman:

    I agree with Mustang Bobby’s assessment. I would add that although the Clinton matter was a civil rather than criminal matter it does add support to the argument that a President is not immune to a Grand Jury subpoena.

  194. 194.

    Corner Stone

    January 25, 2018 at 10:58 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Ari Melber on air

    Nice catch.
    But don’t get your Cromwells crossed on this. Things can be reported and still not be true. I like Nick just fine, but I still take a dose with every thing he reports as true. He seems like one of those eager Beagle puppies every time he is on air.
    Bork was a piece of shit and deserves all the approbation his namesake has earned.

  195. 195.

    Immanentize

    January 25, 2018 at 10:58 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: are you actually one of my students? You sound like some of them…. Actually, I have a cool group this semester.

    ETA One of them has a big red sticker on his laptop that says “I support Trump.” He is one of my best students so far. I haven’t asked him about the sticker yet….

  196. 196.

    Gvg

    January 25, 2018 at 11:03 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: I don’t buy it. Bork was supposedly nominated for the Supream Court as payback for being Nixon’s man. There are too many times when someone could have supported him before now. Secret stories like this are appealing but considering how Bork acted then and afterwards, it needs a LOT of supporting evidence. Now it gets said? Aren’t all three men dead now? And what advantage would now accrue to this just spoken up defender now? Uhuh.

  197. 197.

    Mike in DC

    January 25, 2018 at 11:03 pm

    I feel like we need an Xzibit Pimp My Ride meme for this:
    Yo Dawg, I heard you like to obstruct justice, so I installed an extra obstructor, so you can obstruct while you obstruct

  198. 198.

    PJ

    January 25, 2018 at 11:05 pm

    @Bill Arnold: The Ossining area is lovely in the fall.

  199. 199.

    Frankensteinbeck

    January 25, 2018 at 11:05 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: and @Cheryl Rofer:
    These have been my positions from the first, as you have probably noticed. Trump firing Mueller is not likely, because he has certainly already tried. The moment he got pushback, he folded like a cheap suit. He is a coward of legendary proportions, more chickenshit than I have ever seen. It’s also why he’s not going to start a war. He can hold all the cards, all the power, but if it even involves having a sharp conversation with someone, he is too afraid.

    Something kind of similar applies to his base. They love to talk about rebellion, but what they really love to do is talk. There will be no widespread violence, only an increase in normal hate crime and domestic terrorism levels. These assholes have all the courage necessary to harass someone who can’t fight back, as long as they can do it without getting out of a chair.

  200. 200.

    ? Martin

    January 25, 2018 at 11:07 pm

    @But her emails!!!: Well, to be fair, it’s hard to sort out what Republican legislators actually want broadly. But one thing we know is that they can’t quit the billionaire nutjobs that fund their party and they can’t quit the white supremacists that they rely on for votes.

    This is demographic suicide, and they know it, which is why they’re all retiring. They got their tax cut and now they’re going to nope themselves the fuck out.

  201. 201.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    January 25, 2018 at 11:09 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    The Express says Trump will speak at 1:00 p.m. local time (7:00 a.m. EST).

  202. 202.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    January 25, 2018 at 11:10 pm

    @efgoldman: No, it supported the Special Counsel’s subpoena for the tapes.

  203. 203.

    lgerard

    January 25, 2018 at 11:11 pm

    I find the idea of Mueller patiently bidding his time for a few decades, just waiting for the opportunity to finally get even for that golf club dispute, positively hilarious.

  204. 204.

    Jeffro

    January 25, 2018 at 11:12 pm

    @TS: “What if Obama had done 1/10 of this?”, right? It’s ridiculous.

    Stormy Daniels could have been Trumpov’s cut-out to to the Kremlin, and GOP Congressmen would still be demanding an investigation into either Hillary’s pocket calculator (IT HAS A CHIP!) or the two FBI agents’ secret Valentine’s Day notes to each other (do you like me? check ‘yes’ or ‘no’) or both. Anything but the obvious or patriotic.

  205. 205.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 11:16 pm

    @Immanentize: I may not be remembering that part correctly.

    Why are we here? Who am I?//

  206. 206.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 11:17 pm

    @Corner Stone: I’m not defending Bork. I’m just relating what Ackerman said.

  207. 207.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    January 25, 2018 at 11:18 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    But another site says 8:00 a.m. Go figure.

  208. 208.

    Immanentize

    January 25, 2018 at 11:18 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: ha. So true! It might have been Richardson who supported Bork kinda when he was nominated to the Court. All these guys are/we’re deep died in the wool Republicans….

  209. 209.

    Aleta

    January 25, 2018 at 11:19 pm

    Fwiw, Earlier this year the NYT put out a story (two undisclosed sources) that Trump had ordered McGahn to convince Sessions not to recuse. I think it was the story that got attention for describing how angry Trump was when Sessions wouldn’t agree (according to other witnesses). And for what Trump supposedly said about wanting a Robert Kennedy who would have his back or a Roy Cohn who’d fix things for him.

    The day after that story appeared, it was announced that McGahn’s wife was leaving her job in the administration as counselor to Mnuchin at Treasury, which she’d taken in 2017. She returned to her old job as staff director of the House Financial Services Committee, where she’d been since 2013.

    And, probably nothing, but McGahn’s chief of staff is married to Brett Talley, the guy to whom Trump offered a federal judgeship in Alabama. He was profoundly unqualified, even for this administration. And didn’t disclose on forms and conflict of interest questions that his wife works for McGahn. He had to withdraw his name in December.

  210. 210.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 11:23 pm

    @Immanentize: I think what Ackerman said is that Rucklehaus told him this before Richardson died.

    Why are we here?//

  211. 211.

    Manyakitty

    January 25, 2018 at 11:23 pm

    @Jeffro: The only times I’ve seen that, they blew off the question, either by walking away, or by faking ignorance.

  212. 212.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 11:31 pm

    Early observations from Lawfare.

  213. 213.

    randy khan

    January 25, 2018 at 11:32 pm

    Surprised not surprised by this news. Mostly surprised that it took so long to come out.

  214. 214.

    Millard Filmore

    January 25, 2018 at 11:34 pm

    @M. Bouffant:

    I’m eagerly awaiting the gun battle between the Secret Service & the U.S. Marshals

    I would expect the Trump team to simply hole up against the U.S. Marshals in a hostage-standoff type situation.

  215. 215.

    M. Bouffant

    January 25, 2018 at 11:36 pm

    @Marcopolo: In Mexico (about 30 yrs, ago, so …) there were toll roads (mostly for American visitors, I suspect) & crummier free roads for the masses. MAGA!!

  216. 216.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 11:37 pm

    Let’s try again –

    When you’ve lost Fox…

    BREAKING: Trump was talked out of firing Mueller last June, source says https://t.co/0KGb6Abwys

    — Fox News (@FoxNews) January 26, 2018

  217. 217.

    JWR

    January 25, 2018 at 11:39 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    He is a coward of legendary proportions, more chickenshit than I have ever seen.

    Also too, didn’t he avoid getting too close to the border when he went to North Korea? (Unlike steely eyed VP Pence.)

  218. 218.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 11:39 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: This is interesting. Fox may have been in on it. Look at the date on the Hannity byline:

    Hmmmm pic.twitter.com/BY2JevCPNF

    — Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 26, 2018

  219. 219.

    Another Scott

    January 25, 2018 at 11:40 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: You meant, Lawfare, I assume?

    […]

    A few observations:

    First, the Times’s reporting demonstrates just how out of control the president had become in June, less than a month after firing James Comey as FBI director. A few of his tweets from that time offer a stark reminder that the special counsel’s investigation—and Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller—weighed heavily even in his public statements:

    Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

    You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA

    6:57 AM – Jun 15, 2017 62,192 Replies 35,085 Retweets 118,640 likes

    Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump

    I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt

    8:07 AM – Jun 16, 2017
    63,421 Replies 47,571 Retweets 149,766 likes

    Presumably, the “conflicts” Trump refers to in these tweets involve Mueller’s work for WilmerHale, his onetime membership at the Trump National Golf Club and that he had interviewed for the position of FBI director, as the Times describes the president fulminating about in private.

    […]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  220. 220.

    Bill Arnold

    January 25, 2018 at 11:40 pm

    @PJ:
    I once got a little too close to that riverside community in a small boat, and was told to move further away by loud men, in a tower, with guns. It had a tall not-see-through wall at that time. I’m sure Trump would be impressed by that wall.
    The best such communities are further upstate, though.

  221. 221.

    M. Bouffant

    January 25, 2018 at 11:41 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Who knows how many loyalists he’ll find in the Secret Service?

  222. 222.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 11:41 pm

    @randy khan: April Ryan scooped everyone on this last June. Everyone ignored her though.

  223. 223.

    Manyakitty

    January 25, 2018 at 11:45 pm

    @PJ: Screw that. Send him to Leavenworth and let him rot in Gotti’s old cell.

  224. 224.

    Cheryl Rofer

    January 25, 2018 at 11:45 pm

    @Adam L Silverman: It looks like the source(s) went to Fox too. More surprising, Fox listened.

    @Another Scott: Ugh, yes. Thanks for getting the link right. It took me three tries to get the Fox comment right. Obviously time to go to bed. Good night all.

  225. 225.

    Omnes Omnibus

    January 25, 2018 at 11:45 pm

    @M. Bouffant: I won’t go there.

  226. 226.

    Lyrebird

    January 25, 2018 at 11:47 pm

    @Bill Arnold:

    The best such communities are further upstate, though.

    i don’t know, the birding is not so good near Staten Island I would guess, but the poetic justice of Orangemandias cooling his heels at Riker’s Island, where the wrongly-convicted Central Park young men were incarcerated, would be so rich.

  227. 227.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 25, 2018 at 11:48 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer: In this case Hannity wrote a column on 13 JUN 2017 advising the President to fire Mueller. Given the confirmed reporting that Hannity and the President speak almost daily, usually after the President watches Hannity’s show, it makes you wonder what they discussed around this time.

  228. 228.

    M. Bouffant

    January 25, 2018 at 11:55 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Also did soft time.

    He pleaded guilty to a single felony count, in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution. This ultimately resulted in a reduced prison sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland.

  229. 229.

    Manyakitty

    January 25, 2018 at 11:55 pm

    @Manyakitty: correction: Gotti went to the federal prison in Marion, IL.

  230. 230.

    JWR

    January 25, 2018 at 11:57 pm

    @JWR:

    when he went to North Korea

    Yes, I meant South Korea! Sorry. ;-(

  231. 231.

    M. Bouffant

    January 26, 2018 at 12:01 am

    @efgoldman: Not in a Swiss hotel.

    Washington (CNN)First lady Melania Trump’s plane arrived in West Palm Beach, Florida, Thursday, the same week she canceled her planned trip with her husband to Davos, Switzerland, at the last minute.

  232. 232.

    Raoul

    January 26, 2018 at 12:21 am

    @Adam L Silverman: O/T but I continue to be amazed that convicted bank fraudster and admitted teen boy diddler Dennis Hastert’s name is used regularly in conjunction with a ‘rule’ imposed by the GOP House. Sheesh.

  233. 233.

    Adam L Silverman

    January 26, 2018 at 12:36 am

    @Raoul: You rule make with the pederasts you have, not the pederasts you want. Or something.//

  234. 234.

    Ruckus

    January 26, 2018 at 1:19 am

    @raven:
    Marine friend’s first day in country was the day of Tet, he landed at Chu Lia.
    Welcome to the Nam.

  235. 235.

    Mike G

    January 26, 2018 at 2:04 am

    The president suggested he could be investigated for obstruction of justice as part of the Russia investigation because he was “fighting back”

    I’m surprised he didn’t pull the “Because I’m such a strong Christian” BS, which was Dollhands’ response as to why he gets audited by the IRS so much.

  236. 236.

    NobodySpecial

    January 26, 2018 at 4:15 am

    @Adam L Silverman: NSFW, but here’s the real reason you don’t see Eagles of Justice.

  237. 237.

    J R in WV

    January 26, 2018 at 8:49 am

    deleted

  238. 238.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 26, 2018 at 12:57 pm

    @mike in dc: He could just show up, take the Fifth and stonewall, right? Not sure it’d be that politically different from not showing up.

  239. 239.

    Matt McIrvin

    January 26, 2018 at 1:23 pm

    @Another Scott: This thread is dead, but I’ll note that Nixon’s Fifth Amendment rights as a person didn’t apply there because he had a blanket pardon.

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